Today I’m not saying a word about sex, or about food. I’m going to talk about the past and the future instead...
Yesterday my friend Carrot Top called. She said "You’ll never guess who I talked to now", and I didn’t. Me and Carrot have known each other since 7th grade, and there are a lot of people we know in common. It turned out she had been talking to Almond, who was once our best friend and the third of our "wild trio" as we were known in school. A few years ago, she gradually stopped returning our phone calls and we lost touch with her. Carrot Top calls her a few times a year "just because I’m curious" she says "and I have nothing to lose". We don’t think she’s mad at us, just that she lost intrest.
The three of us, as I mentioned, have know each other since 7th grade. Our high times as a group were during 10th-12th grade, when we became junior "rockers" or "punks", running around the city looking for "action" - drawing graffiti at school, hanging gigantic posters advertising our make-belive band "Jumping Jack Slash the Ripper", wearing leather jackets and peircing, etc. We weren’t really popular at school, but we had our certain fame. There were people who wanted to be us.
Almond was our artist. She drew all the graffiti, the skeletons on our binders, the gigantic guitar on Carrot’s desk we called "Stalin". She was supposed to grow up to be this great artist or at least a graphic designer. Either that or go live in New Zeland, packing eggplants as a job and diving in her free time.
Carrot Top was our money-loving capitalist. She put in more baby-sitting hours than all the kids in our neighborhood combined. She always dressed in the most expensive clothes (which then meant the best of punk fassion, and has now progressed to just the best of yuppie fashion), but she also had this amazing love for animals. She was going to be a world-knowm veterinarian with a flourishing private bussiness. Either that or a millionaire computer programmer.
And me? I was the girl all of the teacher hated to love. Like the rest of the punk gang, I had my heart set on finding a long-haired rebel as a boyfriend, but secretly knew I would end up with a nice nerd. I liked nerds, they seemed to me to be more creative and interesting than most of the rocker/punk people. I was supposed to be a university professor, or a psychologist, or a Prof. of Psychology. Or maybe a journalist? My English teacher thought that’s what I’d be.
So, 6 years later. Carrot, of course, is studying bussiness managment.
And me? I’m studying bussiness managment.
And Almond? She’s beginning bussiness managment next year. That’s what she told Carrot yesterday.
How did this happen? How did we all come to study the same thing? After years of talking about how different we all were. How different our courses of life would be. We didn’t even know what bussiness managment was in 11th grade!
I can understand how Carrot Top got here. And me, I told myself Prof. of bussiness was as good as any other. Same research possibilities, but with more opportunities outside the academy. But Almond? The artist? Why did she give up her dreams? What happened to the beautiful pictures of under the water in New-Zeland?
As I am writing this, I know that Almond would probably think I sold out, exactly as much as I think she did. What I am doing may look academic, but I haven’t felt the real thrill of learning since left the Dept. of Psychology. I keep telling myself that the excitment will come back either when I get a job in Marketing Research. Or if I ever do my Ph.D., i’ll do it in Consumer Behavior, which is very similar to psychology (i would like to think). But I guess it’s really not the same thing. I gave up the journalism because I didn’t think I was good enough, but I didn’t really try to compete. It looked at the time that I wasn’t giving anythin up, that I could always go back to the things I left behind, but that’t not really true.
When I used to think of myself at the year 2000, I didn’t really know where I’d be, I just had the feeling I would be "an adult". I had a kind of hint of how being an adult would feel like, and I was right. I do feel like an adult. And it feels like what i thought it would feel. But where did the other thinks go?
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